Automobile enthusiasts commonly modify stock automobiles in various ways to improve performance and/or to adapt automobiles to uses other than ordinary transportation, e.g., for racing applications. Many such automobiles, including those used in racing, have automatic transmissions with multiple forward gear settings, commonly referred to as “speeds”. The stock shifting mechanisms provided with automatic transmissions in mass produced automobiles are generally not intended nor well-suited for high-performance applications in which the driver may need or wish to use the shifting mechanism to manually sequence the transmission through its gear settings or in some applications in which a stock transmission is replaced by a transmission of a different style. Accordingly, a significant “aftermarket” industry has developed for the manufacture and sale of transmission shifter assemblies to replace stock shifters for such applications.
One of the challenges facing aftermarket manufacturers is that automatic transmissions exist in various configurations with differing forward gear settings. In high-performance and other aftermarket applications, the most common automatic transmissions tend to be so-called two-speed, three-speed and four-speed transmissions, i.e., having two, three or four forward gear settings, in addition to park, reverse and neutral settings, each of which requires a differing construction of the shifting assembly.
Further, either because of differences in transmissions among differing automobiles or different preferences of the automobile owner, the cable connecting the shifter to the transmission may extend forwardly or rearwardly from the shifter to the transmission, commonly referred to as a “front exit” or “rear exit” cable. In addition, different transmissions may utilize different valve bodies to establish a so-called forward shift pattern wherein manual shifting in sequence through the forward gears advances the shifter in a forward shifting direction relative to the front-rear orientation of the vehicle, or to establish a so-called reverse shift pattern wherein manual shifting in sequence through the forward gears advances the shifter in a rearward shifting direction. For example, for a four-speed transmission, the gear shift sequence in a forward shift pattern is Park-Reverse-Neutral-4-3-2-1 whereas by contrast the gear shift sequence in a rearward shift pattern is Park-Reverse-Neutral-1-2-3-4.
As a result, aftermarket manufacturers of automatic transmission shifter assemblies typically must produce multiple differing shifter configurations, e.g., two-speed, three-speed and four-speed shifters in front exit and rear exit cable orientations and in forward and rearward shift patterns, to accommodate the typical needs and desires of customers. The necessity of manufacturing and stocking so many differing shifter assemblies, even though having many common components, creates undesirable duplication of expense for the manufacturer. Furthermore, an automobile owner who may change from one transmission to another is often necessarily forced to purchase a new shifter assembly instead of being able to adapt his existing shifter assembly to the new transmission.
There is accordingly a need in the aftermarket automobile industry for an improved form of shifter assembly that can be adapted to differing automatic transmissions of differing gear or “speed” settings and differing transmission cable orientations.